How To Buy Word-of-Mouth Advertising
Powerful Statements Are Cheap. Unremarkable Advertising Is Expensive.
Word of mouth is the main reason behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions.¹
WOM, as it is sometimes called, is most influential with new customers. Its influence is expected to increase as more people rely on online reviews to pick products and services.
“Caution: Low Flying Fish” reads a sign at Seattle’s Pike Place Fish Market.
The fishmonger shouts out your order. Then all the rest of the staff loudly repeat your order. The first fishmonger tosses your fish into the back to be wrapped up. It’s a spectacle that happens dozens of times a day for 10,000 gawkers a month during the high season.²
The staff even play games with the crowds like tossing a foam fish into the audience as they mistakenly overshot the fish catcher. With this “Purple Cow,” as Seth Godin would say, plus customer games and staff having fun at work, Pike Place Fish Market went from near bankruptcy to world-famous.
Our Accidental Word of Mouth Marketing Strategy
There are several things an indoor tanning customer looks for when choosing a salon, but cleanliness tops the list. We knew this from day one when we opened our first salon in 1998.
We would invest the lion’s share of our training resources in keeping our facilities clean and sanitary. What we didn’t know was that being hyper-clean and sanitary would become our best word-of-mouth advertising.
One day while waiting in the grocery store checkout line we discovered we had a flying fish that would make us famous in our little world.
The lady standing behind us recognized the distinctive foreign accent of my business partner from our radio advertisements. She promptly asked, “Are you the lady who owns Classic Tan?” Upon getting an affirmative response she launched into a diatribe of how clean our tanning salons are and especially how clean our bathrooms are.
Then to everyone in line and the cashier she explains how, when she needs a restroom while running errands, even if she is desperate, she will drive to one of our locations because she knows she will find a clean restroom.
Word-of-mouth is triggered when a customer experiences something far beyond what was expected. Slightly exceeding expectations just won’t do it. If you’ve ever used a public restroom (eew!) then you know we didn’t have a very high bar to cross. In this case, merely having a consistently clean restroom exceeded expectations.
It would be a mistake to depend on staff to trigger word-of-mouth by delivering “exceptional customer service.” Good service is expected. It’s bad service they talk about. Even your best people have bad days. Great service can increase customer retention and generate positive feedback, but rarely is it the basis for word-of-mouth.
Intentional Word of Mouth Marketing Examples
We discovered our flying fish by accident. Pike Place Fish Market hired a consultant, involved their staff, and made a deliberate decision to make a powerful statement that would make them world-famous. In an interview, owner Yokoyama stated, “We took a stand that we were going to become world famous. We just said it and it became so.”²
I learned these techniques from Roy H. Williams, A.K.A. The Wizard of Ads.³
You can make a deliberate decision to buy word-of-mouth advertising too, and here’s how.
- Make word-of-mouth part of your ad budget. Our gift boutique, named Emprizo, had a round red logo with a white heart in the center. As a word-of-mouth promotion, we gave away our signature cookie, a chocolate Oreo with our logo design iced on top. The cost was part of our ad budget. Word-of-mouth referrals would come in asking about the famed cookie. This also helped sell a lot of cookies.
- Physical, nonverbal statements are the most dependable (word-of-mouth) WOM communication triggers. These statements can be architectural, kinetic, or generous, but must go far beyond the boundaries of normal. Include more than one of the three types for maximum effectiveness.
- Architectural can be unique signage, beautiful and unusual interiors, goofy structures, and monuments. Again, at Emprizo we had a tile setter fashion a heart in our entryway. There were scant few guests who didn’t notice it — and it tugged on their heartstrings.
- Kinetic can be flying fish in a fish mart, moving objects, and employee actors. We already discussed the flying fish, but at Emprizo we bought the after-season holiday decorations from Anthropologie and used them as year-round sparkly moving mobiles in our display windows. Each Anthropologie store gets a generous creative display budget. For a fraction of what it would’ve costed us to make those decorations, we were able to buy them when Anthropologie was through with them. It’s about being creative with your budget sometimes.
- Generous includes social giving, free offers, civic responsibility, and keeping it real. At Classic Tan, we’ve adopted the local humane society as our pet charity (pun intended). We’ve love dogs, so this was an easy decision for us. And who doesn’t love to see orphaned animals get food, water, and shelter? Our social media shares go up significantly when we hold a shelter charity event.
Final Word on Word of Mouth Advertising
Don’t promise the word-of-mouth trigger in your ads. It would do us no good to advertise that we are the cleanest tanning salons in town. First, anyone can say that. Second, no one would believe us.
Although it’s tempting to promise the thing you’re counting on to trigger word-of-mouth, these promises will only eliminate the possibility of your customer becoming your ambassador. Why would a customer repeat what you say about yourself in your ads?
You must allow your customer to deliver the good news. They are connected now more than ever with social media.
“Don’t rob your ambassador of their moment in the sun.” — Roy H. Williams
References
- Bughin, Jacques J. D. (2010, 04 01). A new way to measure word-of-mouth marketing. Retrieved from McKinsey Quarterly: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/a-new-way-to-measure-word-of-mouth-marketing#
- Wikipedia Foundation Inc. (2020, 12 13). Pike Place Fish Market. Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_Place_Fish_Market
- Williams, R. H. (1999). Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads: Turning Paupers into Princes and Lead into Gold. Portland, Oregon: Bard Press.
